A few days before authorities ordered the mandatory evacuation of families and vulnerable residents from Kupiansk, Iryna Viktorivna was serving up free hot food to her neighbours from a trestle table set up in a snowy street in the eastern Ukrainian city, ladling porridge and meatballs and cabbage salad.
The sound of artillery bounced across the shallow bowl in which the city stands, four or five shells a minute – sometimes more – fired by both Ukrainian and Russian gun crews.
